Send Me a Dream
by cartoon moomba
Summary: A collection of drabbles on the characters, as seen by their companions. Updated: Vincent - Vincent has a tempting shiny claw, Yuffie likes vampires, and Nanaki is politely laughing somewhere else.
1. AERITH : Cloud

**Disclaimer:** Final Fantasy VII and its characters solely belong to Square Enix.  
**AU**: A drabble I found on my computer that's originally part of a series of the character analysis by their teammates...unfortunately, the others have yet to be written. I'll get around to it. -ashamed-

**Send Me a Dream**  
**AERITH**

_Cloud_

Whenever he begins to think of the voices inside his head, he thinks of Aerith. _"Back then, you could just get by with skinned knees..." _and then her voice, rushing through the darkness of his dazed mind, drowning out the murmurs of his other self – "Oh! Are you okay?"

Her eyes are bright, glowing more subtly than his own – _mako eyes, _he thinks to himself at one point in time, caught between dreams and reality. He corrects himself a second later, fingers running faintly over the green Materia in his sword. _No. The eyes of the Lifestream. _

Those Lifestream eyes watch him with curiosity as Aerith gathers around her flowers – _"I'll be just a minute, please!" _and he pretends that he's not watching her also, but it's hard, especially when her presence sends chills up his spine.

Then they're running, hopping over the rooftops and stray fallen beams – "_Just like him..." _ and she's staring off into space in a way that he'll become familiar with in time, except that he doesn't know it yet. He doesn't know a lot of things, like the way Aerith's own voices drown out her thoughts when he stands too near, or the way his hair sometimes looks too dark and too long when he stands still. He doesn't realize that she is a bit jealous of Tifa, the way she looks at him and gets caught between smiling and frowning – only Nanaki notices her watching them, and when he asks her about it, she laughs and says, _Maybe I am – but not for the reasons you would think._

When she dies, Cloud never knows anything. Just the way she appears to him in the scenery of an ancient forest, smiling from behind the blue foliage – "_Are you scared?" _she asks him in the wind from the sky, her pink skirt disappearing behind one of the many trees. He can't answer.


	2. CLOUD : Tifa

**Disclaimer:** Final Fantasy VII and its characters solely belong to Square Enix.

**CLOUD**

_Tifa_

_This is not Cloud _is the first thing that flashes across her mind when she sees him. The eyes glowing at her through the hazy darkness of the bar are unnaturally bright, the lips too thin (they're frowning at her, at Barret, at everyone, _always) _and his body is the same size as his sword. She tries hard – truly, really, she does – to remember his face smiling, grinning, laughing, dreaming; the memories fade in and out of her head until they disappear just like the stars above Midgar's smog skies.

_What happened to you _is what she wants to ask his steadfast form, sitting at the barstool just within arm's reach. He's nursing a mix of vodka and milk and she watches, confused, remembering the way he always shied away from the dairy product back at their village – _who are you _her lips form but she's smarter than that.

(those mako eyes can kill, she remembers the heat and the screams of the dead.)

Barret doesn't trust him either but her loyalty is the only thing that keeps her from agreeing, because she knows that he once had skinned knees and that his Mother wove beautiful coats and that he hated math in school and how he used to gaze at the mansion at the far side of town, saying to her, _One day I will be like the great Sephiroth. _

She watches him kill and he's not graceful or imposing but ordinary, and his sword has to be cleaned every day or else it will rust with blood, and he sits at the fire as he brings a cloth over it, over and over with his blue eyes staring at nothing but ghosts on the blade.

She watches him and asks in her mind, _Who are you _and her loyalty (he liked cats, he was shorter than her until he hit thirteen, and his Mother called to him from the house everyday to come back in and wash the dishes) is the only thing keeping her from admitting that maybe, just maybe, she's _scared_.


	3. VINCENT : Yuffie

**Disclaimer:** Final Fantasy VII and its characters solely belong to Square Enix.

**VINCENT**

_Yuffie_

"Are you a vampire?"

He stares hard at her and her choice of words. She twitches underneath his gaze, her eyes looking somewhere in the direction of his nose. Vincent sighs and realizes that he should really be starting to steel himself for these kinds of questions.

"No."

Her face scrunches up at his answer and she chances looking him eye to eye before making contact with his ear.

"I'm afraid of the dark," she blurts out, as if it has any relation to what they are talking about. The same realization hits her and she flushes, tripping over her own two feet as they walk. His hand reaches out to steady her and she clasps on to the golden claw, staring.

"Are you sure you're not a vampire?" She asks again, and he glares at her. Somewhere behind them, Nanaki snorts and politely averts his enhanced hearing somewhere else. Vincent begins to prepare himself for a lot of sighing.

"My hand, if you please," he mutters to the ninja still examining the gauntlet, running her fingers over the surface. She frowns at his words and looks up – something in her eyes makes him wary.

"Can I borrow this?" She says, and he nearly trips himself.

"..._No._"

Yuffie's lips turn downward in a pout as she attempts to glare at him. He personally thinks she just looks silly. "Is that your favourite word or something?" She demands, almost like she doesn't know that her anger would be more impressive if only she could bring herself to look at him.

Vincent's lips twitch, almost in amusement, and he promptly overwrites it as annoyance. Yes, annoyance at the short, barely clad ninja currently trying to steal his claw. "Yes."

Said ninja begins to squint. He weighs the pros and cons of glaring back at her, just to get her to leave him be. Unfortunately, he still has morals, and scaring this little girl away would not be a nice thing to do.

"You're not a nice person," Yuffie declares, almost as if reading his mind. He grunts in response.

"Too bad," she continues, acting like he had just said something to her. He catches her gaze lingering on his gauntlet again and moves it further into his cloak, vaguely reminded of a crow watching something shiny with interest. She kind of looks like one, too.

There's silence between the two for a few minutes. Vincent just begins to somewhat enjoy it when the ninja _steps into his path _and stares right up at him.

"I like vampires," she finally says, and grins. Vincent begins to wonder just what he has gotten himself into.

He just _knows _that Nanaki is laughing behind them.


End file.
